Eco Company Walks the Walk

Operating from the UK’s most energy efficient Victorian property, Macclesfield based eco-retrofit firm Solarcrest is now set to convert its entire fleet to low emission vehicles.

The company, who specialise in high performance insulation, heat recovery ventilation and renewable energy has begun minimising its emissions of carbon dioxide and other transport related pollutants by changing its pool cars to PHEV’s, petrol electric hybrid vehicles.
Having previously converted petrol vehicles to LPG, a fuel that reduces CO2 emissions by 25% as well as offering substantial cost savings, Solarcrest plan to phase out all diesel usage in its other commercial vehicles after research showed that the microscopic soot particles and NOX gasses from diesel engines are damaging to health.

A recent report in The Times claimed that as many as 12,000 deaths can be attributed purely to air pollution from cars and vans a year, with up to 40,000 deaths attributed to poor air quality generally. Incredibly, the city of London breached annual EU safe limits as early as the 7th of January. With vehicle manufacturers falsifying emissions tests it’s no wonder our towns and cities are so polluted.

“Walking the kids to school past rows of stationary vehicles with engines running really brings the issue home. Particularly when most of them have just one or two occupants. On newer diesel vehicles, you can even smell the harmful gasses. It’s an issue that won’t go away until we all do our bit.” Said Solarcrest’s Managing Director Eliot Warrington.

“As a business that offers whole house ventilation systems we’ve done many hours of research on the serious health problems linked to poor outdoor and indoor air quality. Solarcrest launched the UK’s first domestic traffic pollution filter that stops both micro particles and gasses, as well as dust and pollen, but these solutions aren’t cheap so we don’t expect to fit one to every house that needs one. What’s really needed is behaviour change.”

“One of our key sales messages recently has been that our systems can remove indoor pollutants, including condensation that leads to harmful mould, and prevent outdoor pollution from entering the home, so it felt hypocritical to be warning of the dangers at the same time we were adding to them. As good as our filters are, we’d much rather focus on energy efficiency.”

“Electric vans are thin on the ground and there are no PHEV trucks at all so far, but when there are we’ll be the first to switch over. One day we’ll be 100% electric powered by 100% solar.”

Macclesfield has fallen behind much of the rest of the country when it comes to catering for electric vehicles, with no publically accessible charging points in the town with the closest being located in Stockport and Buxton. But with that about to change in the next few months thanks to Cheshire East Council’s plans to add both fast and rapid charging stations in the town centre, hopefully other companies will soon follow Solarcrest’s lead.